Broken
by littlespider
Summary: Suigetsu finally gets Karin to stop yelling at him, and all Sasuke wants is to keep is pseudo-team together. One shot.


I am on a serious Naruto-fic roll! I'm practically being bombarded with ideas right now and the only possible way I'll be able to focus on anything else is by writing them done and getting them out while I have them!

Just a little look at Suigetsu's time as Orochimaru's prisoner, as well as something to shut Karin up because, boy, does she ever annoy me. Didn't think this could be considered Karin bashing, but if you think it is, let me know and I'll put a disclaimer in the summary.

Disclaimer: Naruto is not mine.

* * *

Sasuke eyed his teammates as they walked through the barren landscape, the sun beating down harshly on the back of their necks. Walking ahead of the Uchiha, Juugo's gaze was pulled up by the large birds flying somewhere in the distance. Behind him, Sasuke could practically feel Karin's eyes burning a hole in his back, her lust for him practically oozing out of her pores and leaching into the air around her. If only she would get it through her extraordinarily red head that it didn't matter what she did, Sasuke had bigger things to think about than petty hormones.

And then there was Suigetsu. Sasuke let his gaze slide over to the white haired boy walking at his side. If he was going to be honest, the Mist shinobi did not look so good. The boy was a demon in battle and a clearly valuable ally, but at the moment his already pale skin was turning pasty, his face pinched with discomfort. Sasuke could practically see Suigetsu's muscles shaking with the effort of keeping him upright and moving, and sweat, no, water was running down his neck in rivulets. Not for the first time, Sasuke found himself wondering whether the Mist shinobi would simply melt or evaporate before his eyes.

The group passed under a small group of trees that provided some decent shade cover, and Sasuke called a halt. "Alright, let's take a break here. We'll start off again when it gets a bit cooler."

"Is this because of _him_ again?" Karin asked, her voice rising obnoxiously as she pointed an accusatory finger at Suigetsu who all but collapsed into a sitting position against one of the trees. For once, he ignored the remark, instead sipping from his canteen like his life depended on it. Which it did. Karin groaned dramatically. "I swear, at this rate it will take years for us to get anywhere."

None of the boys answered her, but decided to take advantage of the shade and allowed their heavy black robes to flap open. Juugo took a quick, suspicious survey of the area before flopping down on his back in the shade with a sigh of relief. Sasuke perched on one particularly large tree root, removing their map from the inner pocket of his robe to check their course.

Unwilling to admit how much she too welcomed the shade after hours in the hot sun, Karin would not be ignored. She stood in front of Suigetsu, hands on her hips. "I mean, what's with you, having to stop and rest all the time? I thought you were some big shot swordsman, not a melting popsicle!"

Suigetsu, who had managed to resist a lot longer than Sasuke had ever thought him capable of, finally snapped. "You want to know why I have to rest so much, Karin, why I constantly need water? Because you broke me!"

Silence fell over the group as if Suigetsu's words were a smothering blanket. Karin frowned, adjusting her glasses. "What are you talking about, I broke you?"

"You and your boy Orochimaru's experiments, you idiot," Suigetsu answered sharply, his voice tinged with bitterness. "He gave you permission to try whatever you wanted, and boy did you run with it. First it was those damn saline shots. Then it was dehydration, 'See how long the fish boy can last under all these lights with no water.' And last but not least, over-hydration. Just because I have a water based form doesn't mean I'm supposed to be forcefully liquified and suspended, you moron."

"If it wasn't for this guy," Suigetsu gestured at Sasuke, "I probably wouldn't have made it at all, thanks to you."

Sasuke stiffened slightly, less than pleased to be drawn into their fight. But he couldn't help but let his thoughts take him back to the day he had returned for Suigetsu, slashing through the thick glass of the tank and the letting the liquid pool onto the floor. He remembered Suigetsu's gasps as he pulled his human form out of the puddle of what Sasuke had believed at the time to be water. He'd thought those gasps to be sounds of joy at his freedom, but had they actually been indications of pain, of a struggle to regain the form that had been forcefully taken from him?

Confronted for the first time with her actions under Orochimaru's command, Karin was actually speechless, something Sasuke had been beginning to believe was impossible. Her mouth moved - out of habit, perhaps? - but nothing intelligible escaped. "Wh- I…"

But Suigetsu wasn't done. "It takes practically all the energy and concentration I can manage just to hold a solid form right now, because I was never supposed to maintain a liquid form for that long in the first place."

A little ways away, Juugo sat up and spoke softly. "Is that why you've been leaking, Suigetsu?"

"What do you mean he's been leaking?" Karin demanded, bringing her glare to rest on the big man.

"For a sensory specialist, you've been quite blind," Sasuke answered for Juugo, his voice cold and cutting. "The longer we travel, the more water Suigetsu's been losing, though I think it's closer to melting. The only reason he's maintained solid form this long is that he's been able to drink enough water to replenish what his body has lost. That's why I keep calling breaks and why Juugo and I are are both carrying more water than we'd ever need ourselves."

Karin's face turned red with embarrassment as she watched Sasuke walk over to Suigetsu and refill the white-haired young man's canteen with the contents of a large container of his own. Suigetsu murmured a quiet thanks, avoiding looking at the redhead. Karin could feel her eyes burning with tears under the weight of Sasuke's disapproval.

"S-Sasuke, I-"

"Don't apologize to _me_," Sasuke reprimanded her sharply, standing just behind Suigetsu with his hand on the slighter boy's shoulder. "I know you didn't ask to be on my team and that you all have your own reasons for staying. And I'm not asking you to like each other, or care for each other."

"But," and now Sasuke paused, the intensity of his gaze boring into Karin's very soul, "I will not tolerate you placing blame on those who were the victims of your actions."

Karin half expected Suigetsu to raise his head and stick his tongue out at her, as though this were all a huge joke. But he didn't, instead keeping his head down as he sipped at his water silently. She remembered the first day Orochimaru had handed him over to her, a strange looking fanged kid who seriously didn't know when to shut up. But unlike Karin, Suigetsu wasn't there of his own accord; he had been ambushed and captured while training on the outskirts of his village. She remembered the feeling of power that overtook her as she looked at him, sitting hunched over in his dark cell, remembered the first time she injected him full of salt water and watched his pale body spasm and seize as he screamed in pain. When she left to take over the southern hideout, never in a million years had she thought she would ever see Suigetsu again, let alone end up on some kind of team with the guy.

Karin wondered if it was true, if she had been the one to break Suigetsu. She also wondered why the idea of it bothered her so much.

Sasuke didn't expect Karin to apologize and he was right; she didn't. But she did stop nagging Suigetsu in that high pitched, grating voice and the next time the Mist shinobi drained both his canteens without any apparent physical improvement, she offered hers up instead.

Sasuke smirked; maybe they'd manage to become a real team after all.


End file.
